HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Everything in today's culture tells the single person to seek intimacy without guilt.

But what the church can remind them of is that living outside of God's plan, even when one lives without guilt, does not mean one can live without the consequences.

True happiness, for both married and single people, says the Rev. Dr. O. Wendell Davis, pastor of the local host congregation, Union Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, is understanding that one's life belongs to God.

The fifth annual national Singles' Conference organized by the Family Enrichment Commission of the National Baptist Congress, will be held in Huntsville April 7 through 9. Details posted at www.NationalBaptist.com, 256-852-1150.

Conference meetings, which are open to the public, will be held in the conference rooms of the Holiday Inn downtown on Monroe Street. Registration, $100, will be available at the door. Registration begins Thursday at 4 p.m. The Rev. Dr. Julius Scruggs, pastor of First Missionary Church in Huntsville, is president of the 7.5 million-member denomination.

"The world is going to disagree with us every time," Davis said Monday as he gathered with other leaders, including Dr. Richard Showers, who are helping to organize the conference for about 400 people from across the nation. "The things we're trying to teach and preach are not the things the world and society is saying to these young people."

"Things have changed," Dr. Showers said. "But I tell you what has not changed: God's expectations of us have not changed."

And those expectations, the committee members were quick to affirm, extend to single people of all ages. Conference sessions offer a range of inspiration and useful information for all stages of life.

The conference sessions will include information for people newly single after the death of a spouse. Practical sessions will also include managing money, finding satisfaction as a single person, balancing home and church and social life for single parents, and finding careers.

The aim, according to Dr. George W. Waddles Sr., president of the National Baptist Congress of Christian Education, is to make the conference indispensable, both for single people themselves, and for those involved in singles ministry across the country. The message of the conference is unequivocal, Waddles said.

"For those who are single by choice or by divine providence, God can use singles for his glory," Waddles said in the conference announcement. "The single journey can be a grace journey filled with the power and provisions of our Lord. Singles are challenged every day to live their lives on a solid foundation."

"Dating that pleases God" by Kimberly Floyd

"Dating that Pleases God"

Kimberly Floyd, an adviser and teacher of college students and young adults at Union Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, will be among those speaking during the Singles Conference April 7 through 9.

Floyd is author of "Dating that pleases God," a practical guide to four phases of developing a healthy relationship.

In the book's introduction, she writes that these "phases allow you to slow down, step back and develop relationships with the opposite sex that are health, lasting and most of all, allow God to get the glory because His purposes are fulfilled."

Her own experiences led her to understand that following God's path was a blessing because it answered her deepest needs and her eternal purpose.

"The truth was that my deepest desire was to please God, and that after that I wanted a man in my life who I could nurture and love with all that God had placed in me," she writes in the book's afterward.